Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins

Feb 26 | Recipes

These Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins are packed with healthful ingredients like zucchini, whole wheat flour, apple sauce and make a great on-the-go snack.

These Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins are packed with healthful ingredients like zucchini, whole wheat flour, apple sauce and make a great on-the-go snack.

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins

The best zucchini chocolate chip muffins ever! Moist, sweet, packed with shredded zucchini, perfect spices, chocolate chips and all sorts of healthful ingredients!  I like to make these into mini muffins because I find my daughter enjoys them more that way. 🙂 Plus, you can’t actually taste the zucchini so she’s getting a vegetable that she wouldn’t normally eat.

These muffins will be perfect when zucchini growing season is upon us. Use up that bounty!

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Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins
If you want to make mini muffins, fill about 36 mini muffin liners with batter. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 13 - 15 minutes.
Ingredients
  • 1 1/2 cups Whole Wheat Flour
  • 1/3 cup Sugar
  • 1/4 cup Oil
  • 1/2 cup Unsweetened Apple Sauce
  • 1 tsp Baking Soda
  • 1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp Salt
  • 1 Egg
  • 1 tsp Vanilla
  • 1/4 cup Milk
  • 1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
  • 1 cup Shredded Zucchini
  • 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
  2. Grease 12 muffin cups, or line with paper muffin liners.
  3. Combine flour, sugar, oil, apple sauce, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, egg, vanilla, milk and lemon juice in a large bowl.
  4. Stir until just moistened.
  5. Fold in zucchini and chocolate chips..
  6. Fill prepared muffin cups 2/3 full.
  7. Bake in preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes.

Slow Cooker Chicken Broccoli Alfredo

Feb 25 | Recipes

For this Chicken Broccoli Alfredo meal, you take some chicken, broccoli, Alfredo sauce, and bacon bits, toss it all into a freezer bag. That’s it. Then to cook it, throw it in the slow cooker for a super simple, family pleasing dinner!

For this Chicken Broccoli Alfredo meal, you take some chicken, broccoli, Alfredo sauce, and bacon bits, toss it all into a freezer bag. That's it. Then to cook it, throw it in the slow cooker for a super simple, family pleasing dinner!

This Chicken Broccoli Alfredo is easy, easy, easy! Easy to put together, and easy to cook! My favourite kind of meal. 🙂 It’s a family-friendly meal that goes from the freezer to the slow cooker, making dinnertime a breeze. The recipe calls for a bag of frozen broccoli, but I find a bag of broccoli and cauliflower is just as good! It’s delicious served over pasta or rice.

Here’s how to make Slow Cooker Chicken Broccoli Alfredo:

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Slow Cooker Chicken Broccoli Alfredo
These ingredients make enough for one meal that feeds about 4 people.
Ingredients
  • 1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts
  • 2 jars of Alfredo sauce
  • 1 bag of Frozen broccoli florets
  • 1 Green Pepper diced (optional)
  • 1/2 cup real bacon
Instructions
  1. Place all ingredients in a large freezer bag.
Freezing and Serving Directions:
  1. Freeze in a freezer bag for 3 months in a refrigerator freezer or 6 months in a deep freezer.
  2. To serve, defrost in fridge then place contents into slow cooker.
  3. Cook on Low for 6-8 hours or on high 4-6 hours.
  4. Serve over pasta (with parmesan cheese if you like), with a salad and/or veggies.

 

Easy Freezer-Friendly Shepherd’s Pie

Feb 22 | Recipes

This recipe for the ultimate comfort food, Easy Freezer-Friendly Shepherd’s Pie will soon be one of your family's favorite meals! Ground beef and veggies smothered in a tasty gravy, topped with delicious mashed potatoes. Yum yum!

Freezer Friendly Shepherd's Pie Recipe

Easy freezer friendly Shepherd's pie recipeThis recipe for the ultimate comfort food, Easy Freezer-Friendly Shepherd’s Pie will soon be one of your family's favorite meals!

This freezer-friendly Shepherd’s Pie is one of those easy to prepare comfort foods. It's a simple meal that uses ingredients that you usually have on hand. It's perfect for the freezer to cook another day, or you can make it ahead and refrigerate until you're ready to cook it for dinner. This recipe includes the use of beef gravy or Shepherd's Pie gravy, which adds a delicious touch of flavour to the Shepherd’s Pie and keeps it moist and tender.

Here's how to make Easy Freezer Friendly Shepherd's Pie:

5 from 2 votes
Now this is a recipe to bookmark! This easy freezer friendly Shepherd's Pie is a delicious mix of potatoes, veggies and meat smothered in gravy.
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Easy Freezer-Friendly Shepherd's Pie
These ingredients make enough for two 8x8 baking pans that will feed about 4 people each.
Ingredients
  • 1 ½ lb. lean ground beef
  • 1 bag mixed frozen vegetables
  • 1 small onion diced
  • 1 clove garlic minced
  • About 10 medium potatoes
  • 6 Tbsp butter
  • ½ cup milk
  • 1 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1 package Shepherd's Pie gravy mix prepared as per instructions
  • 1 cup cheddar cheese shredded
Instructions
  1. Peel and cut potatoes.
  2. Cook in salted water until tender, about 20 minutes, drain.
  3. Add butter, milk and mash then set aside.
  4. In a large pan, add ground beef, onion, and garlic and cook until browned.
  5. Add bag of frozen mixed vegetables, heat through.
  6. In the meantime prepare gravy mix as per instructions.
  7. Stir gravy into meat and vegetable mix.
  8. Transfer to freezer safe baking dish.
  9. Top with mashed potato mix and sprinkle with cheddar cheese, if desired.
Freezing and Serving Directions
  1. Once assembled, cover freezer safe baking dish really well. Place in freezer.
  2. To serve, defrost, then preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  3. Bake for 30 minutes covered. Then bake uncovered for an additional 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Other Freezer Meal Ideas:

Freezer Mashed Potatoes

Feb 17 | Recipes

These Freezer Mashed Potatoes are one of my husband’s specialties. After I made them one time, he decided we needed to eat them more often, so he takes it upon himself to make up a fresh batch every once in a while. Makes me happy, because I happen to think they’re delicious too!

You have got to try these delicious freezer mashed potatoes! They are so so good!

Normally, potatoes don’t freeze well, but because there’s all sorts of yummy additions, these freeze very well! They also pair very nicely with the Maple Pineapple Slow Cooker Ham I have here.

The added sour cream, cream cheese, butter and salt & pepper make for a really delicious combination of flavours. Sometimes, they don’t even make it to the freezer before we eat them 😉

Here’s how to make Freezer Mashed Potatoes:

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Freezer Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients
  • 10 medium russet potatoes diced
  • 4 ounces Cream Cheese
  • 4 ounces Sour Cream
  • 1 teaspoon Salt
  • Âź teaspoon Black Pepper
  • 2 tablespoons Butter
  • Shredded cheddar cheese to cover top optional
Instructions
  1. Boil potatoes until cooked through.
  2. Drain water and smash potatoes until smooth.
  3. Add in cream cheese, sour cream, salt, black pepper and butter.
  4. Mash and combine until fluffy.
  5. Divide among two 8x8 aluminum freezer pans.
  6. Sprinkled cheddar cheese over top, if desired.
  7. Cover, label and freeze.
To Serve:
  1. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes.

Maple Pineapple Slow Cooker Ham

Feb 15 | Recipes

I’ve got another Fill the Freezer February recipe post for you! This time it’s for a delicious maple pineapple ham that can be made in the slow cooker. I actually changed this recipe up a bit from the one available in the Fill the Freezer February pack. I wanted to use what I had on hand and so I omitted the brown sugar (mine was rock hard) and used some canned pineapple instead. This actually makes me happier, because I feel like there’s less sugar that way!

I’ve made a very similar version to this several times in the past and it’s always a hit with everyone. I whipped up two batches of freezer mashed potatoes to serve with this.

Here’s how to make Maple Pineapple Slow Cooker Ham:

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Maple Pineapple Slow Cooker Ham
Ingredients
  • 1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
  • 1/3 Cup Maple Syrup
  • 1 Small can of Pineapple with Juice
  • 1 Pre-Cooked ham
Instructions
  1. Place Dijon mustard, maple syrup and pineapple and juice into a bowl and mix well.
  2. Place ham into a large freezer bag.
  3. Pour sauce over top of the ham.
  4. Seal Bag. Freeze.
To Serve:
  1. Place ham and sauce in a slow cooker. (Can still be frozen)
  2. Cook on low for 6 hours.

 

Chicken Pesto Stuffed Shells (Fill the Freezer February)

Feb 10 | Recipes

First up in my Fill The Freezer February task, is these delicious Chicken Pesto Stuffed Shells! (I sincerely hope my photography skills only improve with each meal I make…my apologies.) These are so delicious and are actually quite simple to put together! They were a hit with everyone in my family and I need to make another batch because I planned to make two for the freezer, but only one made it there! I served these with a caesar salad and some carrot sticks.

I also love my KitchenAid mixer so I try to do as much as I can with it in the kitchen and these proved that I can create the whole “stuffing” part with the mixer. Including shredding the chicken! That is a win in my books, especially when I’m working with a stiffer food thing. (Saves my wrists.)

These Chicken Pesto Stuffed Shells could be quite versatile. I think they’d be great with spinach added, as much pesto as you’d like and I’m sure most variety of cheeses would be wonderful. You could even try adding a bit of tomato sauce.

Here’s how to make freezer friendly Chicken Pesto Stuffed Shells:

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Chicken Pesto Stuffed Shells
This recipe makes enough for two pans of stuffed shells that will feed about four people each.
Ingredients
  • 1 box of jumbo pasta shells
  • 8 oz cream cheese softened
  • 2 cups fresh grated Parmesan and/or mozzarella cheese + extra for topping
  • 6 Tbsp prepared pesto homemade or store bought
  • 4 cups shredded cooked chicken
  • 2 cloves garlic minced
  • Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
  1. In a large pot, bring water to a boil and cook pasta shells only until al dente. (The pasta will finish cooking when the dish is baked.)
  2. Drain the pasta shells and set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients, except the extra cheese for the topping.
  4. Fill the pasta shells with the filling.
  5. Freezing and Serving Directions
  6. Place stuffed shells in an aluminum baking dish.
  7. Sprinkle the extra cheese over shells.
  8. Cover well.
  9. To serve, defrost, then preheat oven to 350 degrees and bake shells uncovered for 35-40 minutes or until shells are bubbling hot and cheese melts.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do!